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Saturday, 31 March 2012

Seattle Superstorm starring Esai Morales airs tonight (9 pm, Syfy)

Esai Morales stars in Seattle Superstorm, which airs tonight at 9 pm on Syfy. Sci Fi Talk has a Q&A with him and his cast mates:

What’s it like for you these days to step into a movie like this, like a fun movie, as compared to the seriousness of a world like Caprica?
Esai Morales: Yes, well you know I enjoyed my time with the folks at Syfy and I felt I was safe enough there. So yes, it’s a different animal. I mean Caprica was, one episode was probably more than the budget of this whole piece. Again, I don’t know, but it’s just a different scale. So what you have to do is you play with your imagination. You literally have fun. I mean for me the fact that Caprica isn’t there anymore and the fact that I have a young child, I can’t be too snooty and go, “Oh well this isn’t Martin Scorsese directing and producing.” I can’t afford that, I have to have – be realistic and see that there’s an opportunity here to play a guy who wasn’t a stereotype, who wasn’t even Latino, he just was. Ona Grauer and these wonderful young actors that along on the line with us, is was just a chance to play, a chance to learn a little bit about science. It’s actually quite fun when you talk about all these things and you go, “Okay, what the heck does that mean?”So it was antithetical in the sense that it wasn’t as heady. You’re right, it wasn’t some sort of, “What is it to be human,” conundrum. But at the same time it is, “What is it to be a family?” So that – it’s a different dynamic, yet the similar things at stake, the survival of your family.

And Inside Blip talked to Esai about his character in Fairly Legal. Snippet:

“I think he's wonderful," he said. "I think he's in the right most of the time, because you got to play people that. I think he's a realist.”

The conflict with Trucco’s straight-shooting “Justin Justice” is a real David and Goliath battle -- or possibly more a David and Saul struggle -- with Justin as the usurping apprentice and Davidson as the experienced, somewhat jaded, authority. But Morales doesn’t see them as so different in the long run.

“[Aaron] is a shrewd politician who does what he has to do," he explained. "Not only to do his job, but to thrive and to climb higher and higher ... The job defines you sometimes, you know? When you go from working on the floor to being manager, it changes you. And I believe that the position of district attorney has changed him from his young days a green, you know, oh “I want to save the people” [lawyer], which he sees in Justin. ... It's like, you're not gonna, I'm not gonna let him steal the work I've put my whole life into. Here he comes because he's Mr. Goody Two Shoes. He thinks he knows that game and system better than me? No way.”

Here is the synopsis for Seattle Superstorm:

When an unidentified object is shot down over the waters of the Pacific Northwest, an excavation team is sent in to retrieve it. Moments later, a dark cloud spreads through the water and empty wetsuits rise up, floating ominously on the surface—leaving no trace of the people behind. As Seattle officials inspect the debris, the sky grows turbulent, seemingly instigated by the smoke coming off the wreckage. Major Emma Peterson (Ona Grauer: V, Stargate Universe) is handed the task of identifying the threat and securing the city, while her fiancé, scientist Tom Reynolds (Esai Morales: Caprica, 24), keeps an eye on their two teenage children. However, the scientist in him is unable to ignore the strange occurrences taking place around him and he sends the teens home, unaware that he is putting them directly into the path of danger. Now the family must find each other in the midst of the chaos and work together to put a stop to the storm before it spreads beyond their control and annihilates the planet!